Wednesday’s Wood engraver

I discovered Clare Leighton early in my search for women engravers.  I still know little about her except that she was the first woman to write about wood engraving.  It was considered a new kind of book.  From then people could ‘teach themselves’ ; the process of wood-engraving is described for the ordinary reader in simple and straightforward language unlike other works such as Chatto and Jackson’s A treatise on Wood-Engraving (1839).

I have a copy of the book and it is as Patrica Jaffe suggests in Women Engravers ‘remarkable  … as it is the first 20th century technical guide which gives a running commentary, in the form of captions, upon actual contemporary prints. She provided an index to the serious aims and achievements of living engravers.

The following year. 1933, Leighton published the Farmer’s year a folio containing 12  images illustrating the agricultural labours during the year.

As a new wood engraver the for me progression of Loading is indescribable

1st proof

2nd proof

final proof

Further reading

Women Engravers by Patricia Jaffe

Wood-engraving and woodcuts by Clare Leighton (‘How to do it’ Series)